What are some popular Linux programs?

bash, mc, wget, ftp, ssh, ...

What sort of programs do you mean? Desktop/graphical user interface apps for some special need like IRC or image editing? Command line programs?

If we're talking about "specialized" and "graphical" software, I'll mention Gimp and Pidgin.

I enjoy long sessions with 'find', LOL

Is there any particular area you're interested in?

I like iptraf for monitoring ip traffic, gedit for text editing and thundar as a file manager. I also use MC on the command line.

Don't know if this is actually responsive to your question, but it is a shot.

Oh, "find" indeed..almost forgot and "grep".

finger is fun

R is a wonderful piece of software for data analysis work.

Well, I use a desktop computer for image editing, sound editing, video editing, creating DVDs, backing up DVDs, listening to music and watching DVDs.

I've noticed that a lot of the open source programs that are available on Windows are also available on Linux (Gimp, VLC, DVD Styler and others).

Pfff - don't you guys take time to read the post? "Linux programs". Looking through the official kernel site, "udev" is one of a very small number of actual Linux programs.

Now for programs which have nothing to do with Linux except that they can run under X on Linux:
Frozen Bubble
Powermanga
Pingus

And of course those ancient UNIX favorites:
wumpus
nethack

Wait ... oh NO! "apt-cache search wumpus" doesn't find anything! No more wumpus! Aaaaaaaa!

I browse a lot, so one of my current favourite tools is surfraw.

- image editing - GIMP (but it's no 'Photoshop')

- sound editing - I think 'audacity' is the most popular but there's also 'ardour' - but look for reviews on the 'net.

- video editing - 'Cinelerra' is the one I hear of the most. Probably best to stick to your proprietary software. Threats of lawsuits shut down a few promising video editing projects in the past 8 years. There are also some projects which persist but seem to be 100% gab with no substance - I'm always amazed at how far nothing can go.

- DVD authoring - hmm - data DVD's are easy. Video discs ... ah, probably stick with proprietary software again.

- listening to music - no problems at all; worst case is you run 'cdparanoia' to retrieve music data from defective CDs. 'mplayer' is popular and works well after you've installed the million codecs to hande mp3, ogg, etc etc etc. 'vlc' will also render sound files, but to play a cd you need 'cdcd' - unfortunately cdcd believes a computer can only have one sound card - if you have more than one, cdcd is probably sending the data to the wrong one ...

- watching DVDs - rare problems; most discs will decode fine. I only remember one disc causing a message to pop up with some nonsense about me not being allowed to watch that DVD. 'mplayer', 'vlc', and 'xine' are all popular.

Most of the "Open Source" programs you see on WinDuhs were ported there; some started on Linux or *BSD and some started on mainframes about 20 years ago.

Kanatest for learning Japanese glyphs.
Sudoku-savant for playing sudoku.
Notecase to handle all kinds of information.
Kate for editing files grouped in projects.
Alexandria to maintain library info's of books and other media.
XaraXL for creating and editing vector-images.

Linux Archive

No one has mentioned angband yet eh? how disappointing!! Seriously though. I think the most useful handle linux application that I use is none other than GNU screen, followed closely by irssi

No one has mentioned the best and most valuable program of all: gcc

Audacity is a fine program with plenty of plugins, like the LADSPA effects package, yet Ardour is the one I use for "demo" quality or better. It does nearly everything ProTools does without the high price.